Steps need to be taken to end homelessness

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the East Kilbride News.

When you think of homelessness, what is the first image which pops into your head?

Is it of some poor soul begging for money on a town street?

Or is it an individual curled up in a shop doorway or on a park bench?

While these people desperately need help, so do the hundreds of people living in temporary accommodation in East Kilbride and Strathaven; they are among thousands across South Lanarkshire. And they are classed as homeless. On pages four and five of today’s paper, we examine the plight of the homeless and the local authority’s ongoing battle to assist those in need.

The figures make for sobering reading and it is the duty of our politicians to come up with answers to the nation’s homelessness crisis.

This newspaper has been filled with stories since the turn of the year of huge, expensive housing developments getting the go ahead across East Kilbride and the district.

But is enough being done to ensure an increase in social housing provision?

And is it now, perhaps, time for creative solutions to a long-term problem?

The feeling of being homeless will be beyond most of our imaginations.

But there are people, including children, in our area, without a place to call their own.

A home can be the catalyst for turning around someone’s life. We must act.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on the issue of homelessness, please contact us using one of the methods on the left-hand side of this page.

We would be happy to publish your views on our letters page which, this week, you can find on page 34.